Ooty, the queen of hills, witnessed a drastic dip in the number of tourists visiting from Kerala and Karnataka, which were ravaged by floods in the recent times. However, with the nearing of the second tourism season, the tourism sector is slowly gaining back normalcy.

Tourism, which remains the main source of livelihood for the people residing on the hills, was badly affected as there was a drop of 30 to 40 per cent in tourist arrivals from the flood-ravaged states, officials said, adding that this has resulted in a huge loss.

“People visiting Ooty from Kerala and Karnataka have dropped their plans as they are still trying to gain normalcy in the post-flood situation. Even people from other regions of Tamil Nadu stayed away for long due to the heavy rains in the hills,” said an official from the tourism department in the Nilgiris. 

Horticulture Department officials said that tourist arrivals to Government Botanical Garden, Rose Garden and Sims Park plunged by over 15 per cent last month as compared to the previous years. 

“The tourist arrivals from Kerala and Karnataka came down drastically for more than two weeks after the floods. However, the tourist inflow is gradually improving now. We hope for a better second tourism season ahead,” said Sivasubramaniam Samraj, Joint Director of Horticulture, Nilgiris. 

There was a drop of about 20 to 25 per cent in tourist arrivals from Kerala and 10 to 15 per cent of that from Karnataka. Autumn sets off in the third week of September and ends in October, during which, the hill is visited by as many as 5,000 tourists on weekdays and gets doubled on the weekends. 

The Government Botanical Garden here witnesses a tourist arrival of around 4 lakh during this season, and as many as 7,500 flower pots are readied for the flower show. The flower pots are expected to be ready for the show in a week’s time.

“We hope that we receive more bookings with an increase in the tourist arrivals in the coming days as there will be ‘puja’ holidays and term breaks in schools. However, things may not be as happening as the previous years. A lot of tourists used to visit the hills from Kerala, however, the numbers have reduced by 40 per cent due to the floods. The tourism sector is yet to recover from the impact of the floods, which has taken its toll on the tourist arrivals,” said N Chandrasekar, secretary of the Nilgiris Hotel and Restaurants Association.